China to shut down gambling websites

[Louis Cypher]

China Daily
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-01-20 13:02

China will launch a nationwide overhaul of access to gambling websites and will crack down on-line gambling, the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) said.

Xi Guohua, MII vice minister, said to limit both domestic and overseas gambling websites, the ministry will enhance administration and monitoring of the Internet and tighten related approval and filing procedures.

Any institution which intentionally provides services for on-line gambling will get serious punishment including the loss of its business license, Xi said.

Gambling websites set up by foreign companies will be shut down,and gambling facilities will be demolished, he said.

The Chinese government last week announced it would launch a "relentless fight" against gambling in a bid to smash the rampant gambling among corrupt Chinese officials and state-owned company executives. It cited on-line gambling, gambling in casinos abroad and illegal lotteries as the major targets of the strike.

Telephone hotlines and a website were set up to report gamblingand officials caught gambling abroad would be fired.

[TTinCO]

I guess they want to bring it 100% in house

[Louis Cypher]

Online gambling sees 600 arrested
By Li Jing and Qin Chuan (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-01-20 23:10


Police have caught nearly 600 people across China while investigating a series of online gambling cases that are related to a Taiwan company.

The cases involve more than 500 million yuan (US$60.5 million) of gambling funds, said Tong Jianming, an official with the Ministry of Public Security, yesterday in Beijing.

Some 23 million yuan (US$2.8 million) has been seized, he said.

Reports received by security forces showed that the Baoying Company, based in Taichung of Taiwan Province, had been co-operating with mainland criminals in organizing online gambling since March.

Gamblers, usually told by friends who had played before, log in to such sites as (EDIT...NO LINKS) to register and play, Tong said.

According to Tong, 597 people in 22 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities had been caught by December 27, including 395 organizers and 202 gamblers.

Tong said some government officials are among them, but did not give any details.

Among the arrested is Beijing resident Wang Xin, the Baoying Company's Beijing agent, whose gang had organized gambling that involved 116 million yuan (US$14 million) since last May.

In another development, Beijing police announced yesterday that they have smashed a large-scale online gambling scheme and an organizer surnamed Gu was arrested on January 14.

Preliminary investigation shows that at least 37 local gamblers have connections with Gu and they bet on different kinds of soccer matches worldwide, such as the Italian Serie A and the Football Association Premier League of England.

Money for online gambling is mostly sent through credit cards such as Visa or through wire transfers.

The police have confiscated seven computers involved in the gambling at Gu's home in the city's Xicheng District.

The data on the computers indicate that the group's gamblers had probably plunged 1.1 billion yuan (US$133 million) in gambling during the past six months, according to the Beijing Daily.

So far, more than 80 million yuan (US$9.7 million) has been proved to be involved, said Yu Hongyuan, vice-director of the Beijing Public Security Bureau.

Gu is a second-level agent of a larger transnational online gambling network. He had confessed that a man surnamed Jin is at a higher level but they contacted each other only through the Internet. Jin is now at large.

Yu said online gambling is much more difficult to crack down than traditional gambling as the deals of the former are all conducted through the Internet.

"Collecting evidence of online gambling is a hard nut to crack. It's a brand-new gambling means and imposed great challenges in our work," said Yu, one of the leading officials in the ongoing crackdown on rampant gambling in the city.

The police's achievements were made during a national blitz against gambling, which was launched by the ministry early last week.

Gambling overseas, online gambling and illegal lotteries are the major targets of the campaign.

A judicial explanation of the campaign is being studied and designed, according to a Xinhua News Agency report on Wednesday.

The explanation is expected to define online gambling crimes and distinguish illegal gambling from entertainment activities, the report said.

Chinese have a tradition of playing mah-jong with relatives and friends during festivals and holidays. Such playing usually allows a certain amount of betting.

The blitz will not regard such entertainment activities as a crime, but it needs to be made clear the difference between them and gambling, Xinhua said.

Tong said yesterday an important criteria is to see whether an activity is profit-oriented.

In the case of gambling, both gamblers and organizers definitely carried out their activities for financial gain, while relatives and friends just play for fun.

Tong said the judicial explanation will come out soon.

[The Actuary]

HAd heard of a BIG BUST week and a half ago,

apparently they took the customer lists and were calling the gamblers and extorting money.

China will launch a nationwide overhaul of access to gambling websites

IOW nationwide cyber nanny-note blocking the whole country from accessing certain sites would be characteristic of a police state, since it beyond obvious some of you have no clue what that is.

[300]

This is the same government that last week banned long hair. Claiming it was robbing the brain of energy.

[Louis Cypher]

Officials Sacked for Gambling

The disciplinary departments have penalized a city mayor in south China and a number of other officials for gambling, according to a press conference held Friday afternoon.

Deng Yaohua, former deputy secretary of the Zhaoqing City Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and mayor of Zhaoqing in Guangdong Province, has been removed from his post in the CPC and expelled from the party. His executive post is being dealt with in due legal procedure, according to the press conference, jointly held by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC and the Chinese Ministry of Supervision.

According to the press conference, Deng made several gambling trips abroad from 2001 to March 2004.

Wu Huali, former director of the Public Security Bureau of Huizhou in Guangdong, has been removed from his post for frequently going abroad on funded gambling trips from January 2002 to March 2004. Further investigation into his case continues.

Yu Changliang, an official of the Housing Resettlement Office of Jinan in east China's Shandong Province, has been expelled from the CPC and removed from his office. The case has been handed over to the judicial departments.

Yu was found to have embezzled public money and borrowed from businesses, individuals and financial institutions amounting to 5.6 million yuan (approximately US$674,700) to gamble and repay debts incurred in gambling.

The press conference also mentioned penalties of two other officials for their involvement in gambling, namely Cheng Hong, former deputy director of the personnel and education department of the Postal Service Bureau of Jintan City, Jiangsu Province and Wang Furong, former director of a grain supply center in Rongcheng County, Hebei Province. Both of them embezzled public money to participate in gambling activities.

China started to strengthen crackdown on gambling activities from 2004. Liu Xirong, deputy secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, called on the CPC members to fully realize the importance of this campaign.

"Spread of such activities induce a few party members and government functionaries to become corrupt, take bribes and embezzle public money," Liu said at the press conference. "It will infringe upon the interests of the state and the people, impair the image of the party and the government and corrupt the political and social atmosphere."

He called on various levels of party committees, government and disciplinary organs to strengthen investigation and penalties of gambling party members and government officials. In addition, an effective mechanism should be established to prevent them from participating in gambling.

(Xinhua News Agency January 29, 2005)

China = Big Brother on Steroids. The U.S government sucks, but most other governments sucks even worse. When it comes to governments, the spectrum starts at bad and goes down to hellish from there.

Once there is satellite Internet, government brainwashing and control will threatened by the free exchange of information.
------------------
" I hate the government."-- reno

[Louis Cypher]

Fujian police smash online gambling rings

By Li Dapeng (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-02-01 06:12

Two clandestine Internet-based gambling operations, one with a turnover of more than 13 billion yuan (US$1.6 billion) per month, have been uncovered in East China's Fujian Province.

And so far, 70 suspects have been detained, including government officials and three people from Taiwan Province, according to the Fujian Provincial Public Security Bureau

More than 880 policemen were involved in a province-wide operation on December 20 to swoop on the 104 known Internet gambling dens, which were in Fuzhou, Xiamen, Quanzhou, Putian and Ningde.

More than 140 computers were impounded and 131 suspects rounded up, in addition to the seizure of other online gambling facilities.

The initial investigation shows the entire network was run by two Taiwan-based gambling websites.

A bureau source said they were involved with mainland syndicates in several coastal cities, jointly offering online football lotteries.

Those running the two websites even founded branches in Fuzhou and Xiamen, the two major cities in Fujian, and developed down-stream agents and members.

The websites would carry the schedule, predicted results and odds of foreign football games, in order to lure gamblers to bet over the Internet. The websites, which were strictly run by numerous kingpins, enabled large sums of money to flow overseas, said bureau chief Chen Youcheng, who added that there was still a lot of work ahead to get to the bottom of the matter.

China recently launched a nationwide assault on gambling websites, Chen said.

"Fujian's security forces will do their best in this campaign and crack down on online gambling wherever it may be in the province."

Meanwhile, about 600 people throughout China were recently arrested in connection with a series of other online gambling operations.

All of the operations were linked to another Taiwanese gambling group, which has been working with mainland criminals since last March.